I would like to raise the issue of capacity in our hospitals. Today we learned from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, there are 556 people waiting for a bed in an acute hospital, whether it be in an emergency department, on corridors or in wards. Yesterday I received a reply from the HSE regarding late discharges and we learned that up to 24 September this year there were 55,000 late discharges, which is equivalent to approximately 1,500 per week. We are at a crisis level in our capacity to cope before we even see the winter surge. If we could deal with the late discharges, it could free up capacity in the accident and emergency departments. What steps will the Government take to try to ensure we can deal with late discharges? There is no doubt that if we could free up capacity at the end of a person's stay in hospital when they are fit and deemed ready to go home, it would free up capacity in accident and emergency departments. Special emphasis should be put on addressing this issue.

I thank the Deputy for her continued interest in and focus on this area. As she and the House will be aware, we commissioned an independent report into this matter approximately 12 months ago. I chair an implementation group in the Department of Health overlooking specifically what we now call late transfers of care. A number of different options will come onstream to try to deal with this issue. We recognise the current situation is due to there having been a backlog in the fair deal scheme for a number of weeks but those figures are working their way through the system. Additional investment was made on 9 September which will see those figures come down again. However, with respect to the medium term, I have always made the point that trolleys should be at the other end of the health system. Trolleys should be for people waiting to leave hospital rather than waiting to get in, but that is an aside. We are making significant progress. I do not have enough time to go into it in detail with the Deputy but I am happy to have that conversation with her in a forum on some structural changes that will address the issue of delayed transfers of care.